LCS Spring 2023: 5 new faces to look out for
LCS Spring 2023 is just a day away - premiering on Thursday, 26 January at 5:00 PM EST. Tons of new faces have come into the LCS, and there are some excellent players to look out for.
Pyosik - Jungler, Team Liquid
Fresh off of winning Worlds 2022 with DRX, Hong "Pyosik" Chang-hyeon has come to North America. The DRX jungler made waves as him and his squad triumphed Worlds 2022 as the underdogs. Pyosik has only played for DRX in his career since his start in 2019. To have a World Champion on your roster in NA is certainly huge - coupled with an all-Korean speaking roster for communication's sake.
Expectations are set exceedingly high for Pyosik, coming off of winning the highest accolade a League of Legends player can win competitively. Not to mention Pyosik's favorite champion, Kindred, is meta at the moment.
Prince - ADC, FlyQuest
Coming off of a monster performance on the LCK's Liiv SANDBOX, Lee "Prince" Chae-hwan is a stud. In LCK Summer 2022, Prince had the 3rd best KDA of all players during the regular season. Of course, KDA is favored for ADC's due to how competitive works with ADC's being protected and often the center of the team, still impressive nonetheless.
Prince is undoubtedly the most exciting ADC coming into the LCS Spring 2023 season. It will be exciting to see how he goes toe-to-toe with the already established excellent ADC's of North America like Cloud9's Kim "Berserker" Min-cheol.
Tenacity - Top Laner, 100 Thieves
Milan "Tenacity" Oleksij has been cooking behind the scenes in the 100 Thieves ecosystem for 2.5 years. Joining 100T's "100 Next" program in January 2020, Tenacity has been a bright prospect for the organization.
Tenacity crushes Korean solo queue, grinds to the top of NA solo queue, and is constantly scoring solo kills on his opponents in Proving Grounds and Academy. Granted, the level of competition in LCS will be higher, and the top lane pool is looking mighty strong this year. Either way, Tenacity has been training for this, and it's his time to prove himself as a top-caliber LCS player.
Doublelift - ADC, 100 Thieves
Okay, this is technically cheating since Peter "Doublelift" Peng isn't a NEW face to the LCS. Regardless, there is lots of excitement behind Doubelift's return, and for good reason. Named #1 ADC by the LCS, as well as #2 all-time LCS player, per the 10-year LCS anniversary awards.
Impressively, Doublelift holds the most title wins of any individual LCS player at an impressive 7! Moreover, he is the only player in the LCS to win LCS titles on three separate teams: CLG, TSM, and TL. Of any single player coming to LCS this season, Doublelift is the single most-hyped.
Diplex - Mid Laner, Cloud9
Potentially the biggest question-mark on new faces on this list is Dimitri "Diplex" Ponomarev. Picked up from Vitality's academy team, Vitality.Bee, Diplex has been an EU player since he started his career in 2019. Taking a look at Diplex's stats however, makes one realize why Cloud9 picked this kid up.
In the LFL Summer 2022 regular season, Diplex had the single highest KDA of any player at 7.7. Not to mention, Cloud9's Jungler, Robert "Blaber" Huang has an uncanny ability to synergize well with seemingly any Mid laner he's paired with. Also, if the past has told us anything, never doubt Cloud9's ability to scout players.
Images provided by Riot Games, statistics provided by Games of Legends eSports